24 INTRODUCTION. 



gle for the Life of Others. Both are cosmic processes ; 

 both are ethical processes; both are both cosmicai 

 and ethical processes. Nothing but confusion can 

 arise from a cross-classification which does justice to 

 neither half of Nature. 



The consternation caused by Mr. Huxley's change 

 of front, or supposed change of front, is matter of 

 recent history. Mr. Leslie Stephen and Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer hastened to protest; the older school of 

 moralists hailed it almost as a conversion. But the 

 one fact everywhere apparent throughout the dis- 

 cussion is that neither side apprehended either the 

 ultimate nature or the true solution of the problem. 

 The seat of the disorder is the same in both attackers 

 and attacked — the one-sided view of Nature. Uni- 

 versally Nature, as far as the plant, animal, and 

 savage levels, is taken to be synonymous with the 

 Struggle for Life. Darwinism held the monopoly of 

 that lower region, and Darwinism revenged itself in a 

 manner which has at least shown the inadequacy of 

 the most widely-accepted premise of recent science. 



That Mr. Huxley has misgivings on the matter 

 himself is apparent from his Notes. " Of course," 

 he remarks, in reference to the technical point, 

 " strictly speaking, social life and the ethical process 

 in virtue of which it advances towards perfection are 

 part and parcel of the general process of Evolution." ^ 

 And he gets a momentary glimpse of the " ethical 

 process " in the cosmos, which, if he had followed it 

 out, must have modified his whole position. "Even 

 in these rudimentary forms of society, love and fear 

 come into play, and enforce a greater or less renun- 

 ^ Evolution and Ethics, note 19. 



